In the world of competition, be it football games or proposals, every competitor’s strategies boil down to the same thing. Follow the rules. Know the people that are buying into the competition. Demonstrate your strengths. Uncover and utilize your opponents’ weaknesses. Win the game.
Many times in the proposal world, companies under-utilize knowledge of their competitors’ weaknesses. But ghosting the competition is a key component of the proposal process, and can make all the difference in winning business.
Identify your competitors’ weaknesses through historical knowledge, key contacts, black hat reviews, and outside consultants like Richter & Company who excel in competitive analysis and Price to Win strategies. Then spin that knowledge to make the most of your proposal efforts.
Offset your competitors’ strengths by offering comparable value. Speak of your superior program management, low risk technical offerings, and scrubbed rates. Highlight their weaknesses by demonstrating the superiority of your company and solution. Use their financial or managerial instability to cast a shadow of doubt by speaking of your secure, established revenue and leadership. Use news of your competitors’ ethics scandals and cost overruns to highlight your dedication to ethical processes and your history of reliable cost estimates over the course of past contracts.
In ghosting the competition, you provide a competitive edge for yourself in a hypercompetitive marketplace.
